While new technologies entering the public health context present transformative opportunities for global health, they also create challenges and pose risks. Health actors including governments, researchers, innovators, civil society orgnizations often lack the resources and structured processes needed to assess technologies, understand their potential impacts, and identify suitable governance options.
To address this gap, the OECD and WHO partnered to develop TArGET Health, a tool that supports more comprehensive, forward-looking assessments of technologies and potential governance solutions. By prompting critical reflection, discussion, and deliberation, it can be used to respond to sudden assessment needs, evaluate technologies as solutions to problems, anticipate future developments, and inform strategic action.
TArGET Health aims to support more adaptive technology governance by:
- strengthening the capacity of stakeholders to contribute to policy processes and technology governance decision-making,
- reducing the lag between technological developments and policy response, and
- addressing the novel challenges posed by converging technologies.